In this installment of O! The Wonnerful Internets!: you know that music everyone associates with clowns and circuses, usually on calliope - the one that opens up that Leo Sayer/Three Dog Night hit from the '70s called "The Show Must Go On"? Turns out it was originally entitled "Entrance of the Gladiators" (!) and is from a piece by the Czech composer Julius Fučík. (Circus people, it seems, call it "Thunder and Blazes" - which also has a meaning in the sexual underground frequented solely by clowns and undertakers, and which I surely will not elucidate here.)
That is all for tonight.
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2 comments:
Well duh, of course it's called that! Anyone who ever played in band in high school ought to recognize that piece...
"That" meaning "Thunder and Blazes" or "Entrance of the Gladiators"? Anyway: I will now confess that I was a high-school band geek - playing the trombone, no less - but since I didn't go to Clown High School, we never had occasion to play any circus music. Thus my lack of recognition of the piece's actual (or typical) title.
I do know, however, that the Monty Python theme song is from John Philip Souza's "Liberty Bell" march. So there.
While we're on the subject of circus music, two questions: can anyone remember which Ed Wood movie had a bizarre pseudo-sex scene scored with music that sounded rather more like it should accompany ballerinas standing on ponies and trapeze artists flying through the air? And: somebody once did a cover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give it Away" also more or less in the style of circus music (this made the song much improved): anyone know who that was?
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